Modern Warfare 3's opening week sets entertainment-industry records

FPS' first five days were the most profitable for anything, ever (almost)

Activision is full of praise for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, saying the title's first five days broke records across all forms of entertainment media. In that time, the title's global earnings were $775 million, which is more than $100 million up on previous records (also held by Call of Duty). It's so much money that you could stack it in hundred dollar bills and hide behind it and no one could shoot you, even with Deep Impact equipped.

“Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for three consecutive years across all forms of entertainment,” says Activision head Bobby Kotick. That means that Modern Warfare 3's obscenely successful $775m takings eclipse Black Ops' pornographically successful $650m earnings over the same period, which in turn dwarfed Modern Warfare 2's still-ludicrously successful $550m five-day haul. The game also racked up 7 million hours of multiplayer time in its first day. Yep, okay, them's some big-ass numbers.

Kotick points out that this brings the Call of Duty franchise's lifetime profits to something exceeding $6 billion, which means Call of Duty's earnings are higher than the GDP of many countries in which it's set. Meanwhile, EA's Battlefield 3 broke all internal records for opening-week launch earnings, which means that both games ended up doing very well, even with all of the bickering. Odds are this will be the last time you have to hear about the rivalry that took up much of 2011... until Modern Warfare 4 and Battlefield 4 are announced, anyway.